Good for You Patricia

The dust has settled and they've swept away the debris from the annual conferences of Nurses and Unison (the health workers' union). The Secretary of State survived her "ordeal" of heckling, jeering and slow handclaps. Everyone can be pleased and none more so than Her Secretaryship. Frankly, anyone who has shimmered her way so far up the greasy pole would find being politely heckled by nurses about as awful as not having the correct change for a newspaper. In the meantime, her Macmillan-like "best year ever" attack served its purpose.

Imagine that it's you sitting in Health HQ, knowing that the nurses and the unions are going to make, and the press will be delighed to print the headlines about how bad it all is. Attack is still often the best means of defence and that's exactly what the Mem Sahib did. She set the agenda and no matter how much ridicule her attack generated, it still took the wind out of the sails of her opponents. Now that's what I call effective senior management!

The Deputy Prime Minister's troubles also wiped the debate completely from the public's low-capacity consciousness too. Who say's "It's an ill wind ..."?